Brain Surgery Stops Epileptic Seizures

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WUSA)-- Imagine having uncontrolled seizures and never knowing when they could hit. It's a reality for over 50 million peoplewith epilepsyworldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Michael Beittel, 58, of Boonsboro,Md.,lived withepilepsy sincethe age of two.

"One evening, I literally fell. I'd never fallen during a seizure," Beittel said. He was able to cope with the occasional seizures until it started affecting his job about seven years ago.

Beittel's seizures kept getting worse. Doctors tried several different medications to control the seizures, but nothing worked.

Beittel qualified for a surgerycalledtemporallobectomy, this is a procedurethat would remove a small part of the temporal lobe section of the brain.According to experts, the majority of epileptic seizures originate in that portion of the brain. Temporal lobectomies may be recommended when patients have failed more than two different anti-epileptic drugs.

Dr. Kalhorn says, "A lot of our patients looked at that, and they said 'well that's brain surgery, it must be very risky', and that explains, I think in part why there's an average delay for our patients of about 22 years before they are referred on to a center like ours, where they could be evaluated for epilepsy surgery."